


A warm embracing dance away

by persuna



Category: Crooked Media RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, I tried but they weren't there yet!, M/M, more pre-jonjon than jonjon, please know that they are indeed falling in love here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-20
Updated: 2019-12-20
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:28:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21723532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/persuna/pseuds/persuna
Summary: Where they are, Lovett doesn't exactly know. The kind of backwater that no one in their right mind would come to unless their grandparents had settled in the area for now irrelevant economic reasons or their plane had been diverted there due to adverse weather conditions. No prizes for guessing which camp Lovett is in.
Relationships: Jon Favreau/Jon Lovett
Comments: 21
Kudos: 48
Collections: Crooked Secret Santa 2019





	A warm embracing dance away

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tommyandthejons](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tommyandthejons/gifts).

> tommyandthejons: I tried to mix in a couple of things from your request, and also stole a lot of this from your tags. I hope you enjoy it, even though you had to think of the plot! 
> 
> Title from the appropriately titled 'Strangers in the Night' by Frank Sinatra.

Allegedly because he's almost Favreau’s equivalent on the Clinton campaign, but probably actually because of his tolerance for awkward social situations, Lovett gets saddled with making first contact after the photo starts circulating. It's hard to believe that the sweaty, flushed jock crudely cupping cutout-Clinton's cardboard chest has any input into Obama's annoyingly soaring oratory, but if he didn't matter at least a little, Lovett wouldn't have been tasked with negotiating a settlement between their campaigns. He must, Lovett grudgingly accepts, have some skills. Or maybe Obama still writes all his own speeches and this guy is his beard, hired as a favor to some supporter with a handsome but idiotic son. Either way, it's irritating, and Lovett is prepared to hold his one moment of superiority over this guy's head until he feels like the karmic balance of the universe has been restored. It might be a while.

At least, that's the plan. Once he gets Favreau on the phone he seems so genuinely embarrassed that Lovett can’t enjoy it even a little. Favreau stumbles through an apology inarticulate enough that, against his better judgment, Lovett believes he's genuinely ashamed and not just worried about being fired. Anyone who has been in politics more than five minutes, let alone someone who purports to be a speechwriter, could have put together some pre-prepared remarks smoother than this.

"I know it doesn't look like it, but I do have the utmost respect for Senator Clinton, and for women, and for her skill and experience,” repeats Favreau, for maybe the third or fourth time. The only thing he hasn’t apologized for is his disrespectful attitude towards life-size cardboard cutouts. If Lovett gave him long enough, he wouldn't be surprised if it came up. “I was just... I don't even know what I was thinking, I wasn't thinking—”

Lovett clears his throat, and the tumble of words stops abruptly. He can sense Favreau holding his breath. It may be the most that anyone has ever hung on Lovett's words.

"As you know, Clinton is famous for her sense of humor”—Favreau titters nervously and then cuts himself off again, clearly not sure if he's meant to laugh at that—“so I'm sure if you explain to her that it was a joke, she'll get it."

"I. Um. Are you..." Favreau trails off, uncertain. "It wasn't really funny though."

For a few moments, Lovett lets the silence build. On the other end of the line, Favreau squeaks a little, like a deflating balloon, or a man on the edge of another frantic apology stream of consciousness.

As much as he wants to let Favreau writhe in the storm of his own making, he did correctly identify that pretend groping women isn't funny, and he has sounded disarmingly pathetic throughout the conversation. Resignedly, Lovett takes his place in what is doubtless a long line of authority figures that haven't had the heart to properly instill consequences in this beautiful idiot, all of them inexorably nudging him along towards just this kind of stupid situation, and gives in prematurely.

"It wasn’t,” he agrees, “but neither campaign wants to make a big deal out of this, and there are more than enough real issues for Senator Clinton to take your guy down with. She’s ready to accept an apology with good grace, no sacrificial lambs necessary. I'll be in touch about a time to call."

"Really?" The surprise in Favreau's voice almost makes Lovett regret letting him off so easy. It’s a shitty photo, but it’s also a distraction from the substance of the primary. What kind of dirty tricks did he think they'd play? It’s too late to take his admission of forgiveness back now though.

"Try and cool it a bit when you talk to the senator, but don't lose that slight edge of manic obsequiousness, and you'll be fine." Without waiting for a reply, Lovett hangs up. Hopefully, that's the last time he has to deal with _him_.

* * *

Where they are, Lovett doesn't exactly know. The kind of backwater that no one in their right mind would come to unless their grandparents had settled in the area for now irrelevant economic reasons or their plane had been diverted there due to adverse weather conditions. No prizes for guessing which camp Lovett is in.

In his defense, he'd been asleep for whatever explanatory announcement he assumed had been made, jerking awake only when he was pressed back into his seat by the plane decelerating down a runway that was distinctly not the runway he’d expected to wake up on. Unfortunately, the hour or so of sleep that he managed to catch before they were unceremoniously directed out of the sky has not done much to dent his campaign sleep deficit. If anything, Lovett feels worse than he did when he boarded, like his body is revolting against its disappointed expectations of at least three hours to recharge before it was asked to do anything else.

He's groggy, is the point he's making, and confused, and not in a fit state to assert his rights as a consumer. He files after his fellow passengers on autopilot, absorbing a spiel about how since there are no more flights tonight they're being put up at a hotel without questioning it. If he can catch a flight out tomorrow as the airline staff claim he’ll be able to, he should still be able to catch up to the rest of the Clinton team, and that’s all he needs to know at this point. Lovett boards the coach they're all getting on mostly on faith, de-coaches when everyone else does, and finds himself at the very back of a straggly line for a single staffed hotel desk. The woman sitting behind the desk looks slightly shell shocked. She probably wasn't expecting this level of action at, fuck, according to his phone, three in the morning. Although technically Lovett has no idea what timezone he's in, so that could be wrong.

The line dwindles slowly. There aren’t that many of them, but it seems to take an age to check each person in. He’s right behind a woman with an understandably fussy baby.

"Shhhhh," the woman soothes, bouncing gently from her knees, one hand rubbing the baby’s back where it’s flopped over her shoulder, ”shhhhhhhh". The soothing white noise of it is so effective Lovett might have been at risk of dropping off himself if it wasn’t for the unimpressed, thready sobs of the baby. Lovett crosses his eyes and sucks in his cheeks, managing to make a face that startles or amuses it into ten whole seconds of silence, but it doesn’t last. 

An older woman ahead of all three of them sighs loudly and rubs at her temples, Lovett suspects, performatively. “Maybe it's hungry?” she says to the baby’s owner. 

Lovett can’t see the look that the older woman receives in response, but he guesses from her reaction that it’s scathing. Before either of them can escalate, another passenger further up the line says, “Why don’t you go ahead of me?”. 

The man, tall, with unwisely short hair for the narrow girth of his head and several more pieces of hand luggage than should have been allowed, lets both the woman with the baby and, when she bustles forward, the woman with the attitude problem go in front of him. Lovett only half agrees with this outcome, but he doesn't have the energy to protest. 

They wait. And wait some more. Lost in a daydream (or was it technically a night dream?) of leaning his cheek between the pushover’s solid, comfortable looking shoulders and taking a quick nap, Lovett only narrowly misses disaster. His two operating brain cells manage to rub together just enough to hear Bad Haircut, the only other person yet to be checked in, being told, "You're in luck! We have one more room left."

"One more room?" Lovett asks, sharply. He steps out from behind the other man and the receptionist startles a little, like she hadn't realized he was there. Heightism at its finest, but not the battle that Lovett is about to fight. He gestures between him and the other man. "But there's two of us."

Her taut, customer-friendly smile slumps right off her face. "Oh." She turns blank eyes back to her computer screen and taps a couple of times on the space bar. From Lovett's oblique angle, it doesn't look like anything changes onscreen. He suspects she's playing for time. "Are you traveling together?" she asks, with a hint of desperation.

"No," says his rival for half a night’s good sleep. For the first time, Lovett turns to look at him properly.

He's immediately familiar, but Lovett can't quite place him. Could he be in some other branch of the Clinton camp? Is he a political reporter? It would make sense if he was linked to the primary somehow. While he’s sure the residents of Somewhereville and That Other Place are well-rounded people who live full lives in their small towns, the flight they’ve just come off has to be pretty obscure to anyone who isn’t following a trail of the right kind of county fairs and iconic barbershops across the country. He's certainly got the under-eye shadows and unhealthy pallor of someone embroiled in a presidential primary. 

It’s not until he glances over at Lovett and gives a rueful almost-smile, a faint shadow of the dumb, cocky smirk that Lovett has seen before, that it clicks. It's Jon Favreau. Well, fuck.

He can't tell if Favreau has recognized him. If he does, it can’t possibly help Lovett to be identified as the obnoxious enemy staffer who guilt-tripped him over what he probably, however convincing his protestations seemed in the moment, classifies as a harmless display of youthful exuberance. He might not have recognized Lovett. _Lovett_ hasn't been splashed over any papers groping effigies of Favreau's boss. The evaluating side-long look might be a coincidence. 

"Um," says the receptionist, giving up on the pretense of tapping at her computer, "we really do only have one room left." She looks miserable, and Lovett feels for her, he really does, but he also feels for himself. He needs a _bed_.

"Then what are we supposed to do?" Favreau asks.

"Well, the room _is_ intended for two people," she says.

"You're telling two complete strangers that they have to share a room?" Lovett asks incredulously. "He could be a serial killer! Or a snorer!"

"I'm not a serial killer." No denial is forthcoming on the snoring part.

"That's exactly what a serial killer would say," Lovett points out. "Isn't there some empty room where the sheets haven't been changed?" he asks the receptionist, with increasing desperation. “Or a cot you can put up in a cupboard? He'll take either."

Favreau huffs, indignant.

"There's nothing," she says, firmly.

"Does this room at least have two beds?" Favreau asks, weary.

"It's a twin," she confirms.

He turns to Lovett. “Then let's just share, man. As long as you keep your hands to yourself, we'll be fine."

Lovett’s hackles go right up. If that is meant to be some kind of dig or pre-emptive warning implying that because he's gay he's going to be unable to resist Favreau's charms, as if _he's_ the one who has a history of not being able to control where his hands go, then Lovett is going to kick the fuck off. He opens his mouth to do just that, but perhaps sensing the gathering headwind, the receptionist cuts him off.

"This gentleman was here first, so the room is his. If you want I can call the airline and see what else they can find."

The bluster drains right out of Lovett. Even the thought of going once more out into the night, still unshowered, still unrested, is unbearable. No-homo or no no-homo, Lovett admits defeat. "Fine."

"Great!” she chirps, perkiness restored. “Would you like one key or tw-"

"Two," Lovett and Favreau say, in unamused unison.

* * *

It's not a twin.

For several long moments, they both stare in silence at the king bed, ostentatiously large, defiantly singular. Favreau breaks first.

"Maybe it's two beds pushed together?" is his first, absurd suggestion, second only to, "Maybe the couch folds out?" which he offers up when the bed remains stubbornly whole.

The couch (which would be a generous term even from someone of Lovett’s height, it's more of a loveseat if it's anything) does not fold out.

"Well," Favreau says, after he's tugged fruitlessly at its stiff looking, sparingly padded arms and backrest, "I can just take the couch."

It's polite, which Lovett is suspicious of. He knows for a fact that Favreau is the kind of obnoxious lout who thinks that his drunken jokes undermine a woman, even when she's not there because she's literally made of cardboard. He suspects Favreau is the kind of lightly homophobic asshole who thinks that Lovett will think that sleeping next to a stranger when there are no other options is some kind of come on.

Lovett eyes the unwelcoming looking piece of furniture. Social convention dictates that he should counter offer to sleep on it at least once, but he deeply doesn't want to. What if Favreau takes him up on it? Instead, Lovett has a different plan. For once, he can turn bro culture to his advantage. Let Favreau be the asshole who turns _his_ generous offer down because he doesn’t want to share a bed with a guy. "We can both sleep in it,” Lovett says, gesturing at the big bed.

"No, that's fine," Favreau insists, walking right into Lovett's trap so quickly that it's insulting all over again, "I really will take the c—“

"You know, just because I'm gay, doesn't mean I can't keep my hands to myself," bursts out of Lovett, "however difficult you may find it not to molest inanimate objects." He can never just let things go, fuck.

Favreau's eyes telegraph alarm, confusion, and understanding, in that order. "You _are_ the guy from the Clinton campaign."

Rather past the point of denying it, Lovett folds his arms.

Favreau holds his palms up in surrender. "I swear, I didn't even know you were gay, I was just trying to be nice. And maybe I should warn you—” he hesitates, and Lovett glares whatever prevarication he’s about to offer back into submission. “But if you insist,” he plops his bag down on the bed, "thank you."

Which is how Lovett, as ever his own worst enemy, ends up using Favreau's straight guilt to manipulate himself _out _ of having his own bed.

* * *

Sharing a room with a personal stranger and technical work enemy is pretty much exactly as excruciating as he thought it would be, a litany of tiny humiliations exactly calibrated to niggle at Lovett’s insecurities. The hateful forced intimacy of preparing for sleep, a human's most vulnerable state, right in front of each other. Gathering up an awkward little pile of sleeping clothes to take into the bathroom in a tacit acknowledgment that both of you would have to be naked at some point. Taking a shower and brushing your teeth with someone you barely know _right outside_ in an out and out confession that you have a human body that requires daily maintenance. Wearing underwear in front of them because who the fuck packs pajamas in the expectation that they'll be forced to share a room with a stranger? Having to decide between either averting your eyes when a damp, shower-fresh Favreau, wrapped only in a towel, emerges from the bathroom to grab his bag, and over-compensating for that urge by pointedly not looking away and ending up doing a weird reverse double take. Seeing the other person’s underwear.

The only silver lining is that by the time Lovett, so wrung out by the night's misadventures that his whole body aches, crawls between the starched hotel sheets, he's too exhausted for any credible worries about if he'll be able to fall asleep. It's happening. He barely has a chance to even notice the warmth of someone else sliding into bed next to him before he's out like a light.

* * *

The next thing Lovett is aware of is being way too hot. He shrugs his shoulders, hoping to dislodge whatever covers he's wrapped in and get a little air, but they just hold him closer. This abnormal blanket behavior wakes him up just enough to first remember where he is, to second realize that it's human limbs rather than sentient bedding wound around him, and to third put together who the arms must belong to. He's curled on his side, snug inside the curve of Favreau's body, the teaspoon to his tablespoon.

It is, of course, the ultimate vindication when it comes to who is or is not able to keep his hands to himself. Lovett is decidedly the cudlee and not the cuddler. It’s also even more grossly intimate than when Favreau had come into the bathroom and started sharing the sink while Lovett was brushing his teeth, so that they had to spit into the same receptacle. Deep, regular breaths, hot and fresh from Favreau’s lungs, are puffing over the back of Lovett’s neck. Part of him wants to wake Favreau up and make sure he knows this is an imposition.

Much larger is the part of Lovett that, in the unreal dark of the night, can admit that it's kind of nice. More than nice. It’s soothing a sore spot that’s been aching so long Lovett’s almost stopped noticing it. It’s been a lonely few months. The campaign trail does not lend itself to relationships, and even if Lovett did want to shit where he eats, he’s one of a scant handful of out people on either primary campaign. It’s been a while since he shared a lingering hug, let alone a bed, and he’d forgotten how good it can be to lie next to another person. How your breathing syncs up and your skin warms with theirs. 

The only real problem is how effective said warming is. He kicks his legs out from under the covers to cool off and settles back in, holds his breath when Favreau stiffens a little like he might be in danger of waking up. After a moment the danger passes. He rouses just enough to nuzzle an almost kiss against the back of Lovett's neck—more of a nose press and an inhalation than anything else, but it still shivers across Lovett’s whole body in a way that he is not going to fully examine—tightens his arms in an obliging little squeeze, and relaxes fully again.

At this point, Lovett accepts that there’s probably no way to avoid a straight freakout in the morning. He may as well defer it, and enjoy this as much as he can.

* * *

Lovett wakes alone, to the peal of the hotel phone.

“What?” he mumbles groggily into it. He’s holding it upside down, but it still seems to work. 

“This is your wake up call, sir.”

“I didn’t order—“ Lovett wakes up the rest of the way with a sudden rush of _oh shit_ fear. He hadn’t even set an alarm, and his flight is in… Fuck. Lovett scrambles for his phone, body turning weak with relief when he sees the time. He’s fine. If he hustles, he even has time for a shower. 

In all the hustling, there's barely any time to feel like strangely let down, like a cheated one night stand, and definitely not enough to feel betrayed that Favreau had had the straight freakout Lovett knew he would have and fled the premises. No time for it at all. 

Lovett is so determinedly hustling that he even ends up first in line at the gate, his back to all the other passengers. He manages to make it into his seat before he so much as has a chance to imagine how awkward it will be if he sees Favreau, surely on the same flight, and has to make eye contact with him. Worse, what if Favreau _says_ something? Straight men, in Lovett’s experience, are quick to spread the blame for anything that threatens their masculinity to anyone but themselves.

"You made it!” a cheery voice says before Favreau slides into the seat next to him. “When I didn't see you, I was worried reception hadn't called the room, and I never got your number.”

“They called,” Lovett says, faintly. Favreau doesn’t, he has to admit, look even remotely freaked out. He holds out a coffee and a small brown bag, paper enticingly bloomed with grease.

“I hope you like donuts. I’d have asked you what you wanted, but you looked so peaceful I didn't want to wake you.”

Lovett accepts them both. Maybe he’s the one freaking out. ”You’re being really nice.”

Favreau’s smile wavers. “Well, you know, I kind of owe you a thank you for helping me smooth out that. Um. Thing. And an apology, for you know,” he coughs, nervous, “I should have warned you I’m a cuddler, but I thought you might think I didn’t want to share. One accusation of homophobia is my daily quota.” Favreau’s apologies, it turns out, are even more devastating in person, when you can see his eyes turn big and liquid and sincere, and his mouth turn down with genuine, heartfelt regret. 

Lovett’s guard sublimates down into nothing, as useless as dry ice in the desert. “It’s fine. You make a good electric blanket.”

Favreau beams at him like being complimented on his standard-issue mammalian body temperature is the highlight of his week. 

"Good, because I took a Xanax a few minutes ago—nervous flier—and in about ten minutes I might fall asleep on your shoulder.”

Lovett laughs.

He’s not, as it turns out, joking about the Xanax. They manage about twenty minutes of increasingly loopy but very enjoyable conversation—maybe it’s the drugs, but Favreau thinks he is _hilarious_—before Favreau falls asleep. Somewhere over Wyoming, he worms a hand under Lovett’s arm and pulls it in like a stuffed animal. Lovett lets him take it and tuck it against his chest. When Lovett weaves their fingers together, strictly for the stability of the whole arrangement, Favreau gives a happy sigh.

**Author's Note:**

> This is based on a Tumblr post by tommyandthejons that was based on a tweet that was about an article titled "After 2 strangers missed a flight, they were asked to share a hotel room with one bed".


End file.
